the ghosts of Halloween costumes past

Halloween is probably my favorite holiday. I have always loved costumes, plus the goth in me¹ loves the dark and creepy trappings of the holiday. While I may not be able to tell you every costume I’ve ever worn for Halloween, I can sure remember a lot of them. What’s more, I’m a big fan of making my own costumes. While I do like to see so many people get fired up about getting into the holiday spirit, all those cheaply made polyester costumes you see in stores these days make me a little sad. Part of the joy for me is in the creation, or at least the assembly, of the costume.

You may well be wondering what great schemes I have devised for this year’s costumes. The sad answer is “not much.” I have been very focused on work and other life things. Having perhaps gone a bit overboard with last year (cf. last Halloween’s post: “Quiz: How compulsive are you? (Halloween costume edition“), I decided that I would try to meet Halloween with a better attempt at sanity.

Phoebe had decide a few months ago that she wanted to be a witch, and I heartily approved. I thought I might be able to make her a dress. But then I was shopping at the second hand children’s store (and no, they don’t sell second hand children), I found a witch’s dress and hat on the rack. In Phoebe’s size. Since I had made a point of not asking Theo about what he wanted to be (in part so that I could have a chance to run with a theme, and in part because I didn’t want to get stuck committing to something tricky when he’s not likely to even remember this costume by the time he’s 6), I didn’t have anything particular in mind for him. I thought I could go with another traditional Halloweeny costume (ghost, mummy, frankenstein, bat…), but didn’t find any such costumes on the rack in his size. I did, however, find a rather cute green frog. Theo likes frogs. And green. I bought it.

So, while one might be able to relate the witch and the frog in a more narrative way, I’m not really working with a theme. And I don’t have any schemes for a costume for myself that would tie things together. So be it.

Instead, I will have to console myself by looking back at some of the fun costume themes I have put together in the past:

• butterfly (Phoebe), caterpillar (Theo) and munched-looking plant (me) (2010)
• firefighter (Phoebe), dalmatian (Theo) and fire (me) (2009)
• bunny (Phoebe) and carrot (Theo) (2008)
• squirrel (Phoebe) and tree (me) (2007)

Other Halloween costumes that I have worn as an adult have included:

• a witch
• a spider
• Morticia Addams
• a ghost
• a mummy
• half man/half woman

At some point, I’ll have to dig up descriptions and/or photos of some of these. (Well, I already wrote about the mummy.) For the record, none of these were pre-fab or packaged costumes, though I did buy and assemble occasional pre-made parts. I’m rather pleased that some of my descriptions of past costume creations have been of use to others out there. I even once heard from someone who modelled her daughter’s squirrel costume after the one I made, and she and her husband were trees following my tree costume.²

I’m going to declare this post to be among the posts on Things I Like: I like costumes. This is only number 4 of the proposed 40 posts on things I like. I’ve realized that my slowness is in part due to my wanting to give each of the Things I Like its due attention, and in part to my having trouble deciding how to sort out the things I like into individual posts. (There is often overlap. I mean, I like costumes, and Halloween, and Halloween costumes, and themes, and themed Halloween costumes.) There is also this desire to have them presented in some sort of logical order. I need to get over that. (Screw logic!)

—

¹ The goth in me shares space with the hippy in me, the uptight schoolmarm, the curious 12-year-old, and a variety of other characters, including a short balding guy named Ned who won’t share his Cheetos with any of the others.

² If a tree costume falls in the closet, and nobody hears it, do you still have to pick it up? ³

³ No. But you may later need to rake.

capitalist dictators

As November approaches, I find myself hankering to join in on that mad month of collective daily blog posting known as NaBloPoMo. I’ve been crazy busy with work and life, but having now participated for 4 years running, I still want to give it a go. The NaBloPoMo headquarters have been relocated from their previous home at Ning to BlogHer. I went to the page where I needed to go to list my blog for the November blogroll, and stopped short.

I found myself very irritated, perhaps unreasonably so, by the instructions “Please enter your blog name, capitalizing the words as you would any title.” The trouble is, I do not capitalize my blog title. My blog title is collecting tokens, not Collecting Tokens. I don’t really mind when people capitalize it, when, say, mentioning me in a post, or listing me on a blogroll. But I do mind being told that I should capitalize it when I list it somewhere.

Putting the title in lower case was a deliberate stylistic choice I made when I started my blog nearly 5 years ago. I can’t exactly say why, but given my Propensity for using Capitalization in a Tongue-in-Cheek way to signal Pomposity and Officiousness (c.f. The Ministry of Silly Blogs, which is decidedly Capitalized), I suspect that I wasn’t feeling all that Serious. This blog, my main blog, is an informal place for me to unload my thoughts, memories, creative outbursts, and so on. The lower case perhaps reflects the lower bar; this site is a work in progress. (For that matter, I also decided on the blogging name of alejna, which, while it bears a striking similarity to my legal first name, is not the same. The stylistic difference is meaningful to me.)

So, I was about to sign up for NaBloPoMo, but I have hesitated. I mean, I hate to look like I can’t follow directions. I am predisposed to Following Directions when dealing with Bureaucracy. But to capitalize my blog name feels just Wrong™.

Here’s the thing: blogging is a new medium. (Well, it may seem old in today’s whirlwind of social media, but it hasn’t been around all that many years.) It is a form of self-publishing that has been revolutionary. Individuals have the power to put their written words out there to reach potentially large audiences without the constraints dictated by traditional printed media. Yes, this does lead to a wide range of writing and grammar skills sharing space on the web. Sure, there may be plenty of downright errors. Spelling errors, word misuse, typos, and all that jazz. Yes, some people could clearly benefit from an editor. But this medium also encourages stylistic liberties. We can choose to boldly split infinitives. Use sentence fragments. Or we can decide to begin sentences with conjunctions. And dammit, we can choose how to capitalize our own freakin’ blog titles.

Looking through my blogroll, I see that I am not alone in my capitalizing choices. Many bloggers have even chosen to further eschew capitalization norms, such as the writers of baggage carousel 4, crib chronicles, Wrekehavoc.com. These three women are well-educated (highly educated, even), intelligent, and fantastic writers. They certainly know how to capitalize according to the style guides. (And my guess is that there are contexts in which they choose to go along with the capitalization norms.) They choose to write without capitalizing their sentence-initial words or first person singular subject pronouns.

Dictating how bloggers should present their blog titles is stylistic prescriptivism that I don’t feel should be part of blogging. If you publish a scholarly journal, by all means tell people how to capitalize and punctuate their section headers. Tell them, if you feel so strongly about it, what font to use and when, exactly, to italicize. But if you are a blogging hub and listing the blogs of many across the diverse blogosphere, respect the stylistic fluidity of the medium. (And dudes, with a name like NaBloPoMo, making an issue out of archaic style guidelines just makes you look Silly™.)

What about you? How do you feel about capitalization? If you have a blog, do you, too, feel that your choice of capitalization is integral to the blog name?

p.s. Having gotten this rant out of my system, I went ahead and just filled out the form. But I used lower case. Because I am a Rebel like that.

making excuses

For the first time in my life, I am finding myself in the position of needing to write a bona fide excuse note for someone else. Phoebe has had a fever the last couple of days, and we kept her home today.¹ Now that she’s in kindergarten, we have to go along with The System. I must play the role of the Responsible Adult.

Anyhow, I need to write an excuse note. And I have this urge to…make something up.

Dear Ms. X,

Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. She came down with a mild case of leprosy, slight hydrophobia and severe anthracnose. She’s all better now, though.

Sincerely,
Phoebe’s mother

Dear Ms. X,

Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. We had misunderstood the upcoming “Fall back” time change, and set our clocks back 3 months. We thought it was late summer and spent the day at the beach. Please accept this envelope full of sand in lieu of any schoolwork that Phoebe may have missed.

Sincerely,
The woman on the couch

Dear Ms. X,

Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. She was abducted by a roving band of barracuda rabbits, who forced her to peel carrots and sing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” all day. She was returned safely upon our payment of a ransom of 12 sock monkeys and a bag of potato chips.

Sincerely,
Phoebe’s mother, who is clearly not insane

Dear Ms. X,

Please excuse Phoebe’s absence from school yesterday. She was sick in bed with a hangnail.

Dispasssionately yours,
Phoebe’s mother

Dear Ms. X,

Phoebe wasn’t at school. I’m tired of making excuses.

A

As for me, I have my own set of excuses for why I haven’t posted here in over a week. I’ve been busy with, believe it or not, work. My own research, even. Also, I have a hangnail.

—
¹ Well, not actually home for all of the day, but out of school. The school rules ask that you not send your child to school with a fever, but they don’t specify where you should put her. She ended up spending some of the day at John’s office.

Hong Kong trip recap: days 3 and 4

My third full day in Hong Kong was the first day of the conference. The conference is a very high-quality international meeting with hundreds of phoneticians presenting their cutting edge research. The program looked fantastic. However, I found myself resenting the conference for keeping me from exploring more of Hong Kong. (Not very fair to the conference, given that it’s what got me over to Hong Kong in the first place.) I got over my grudge and plunged in. I started to enjoy myself, attending talks and poster sessions and catching up with people I typically only get to see at conferences. By the afternoon, though, the tiredness kicked in big time. Rather than falling asleep during the talks, I ended up skipping out of the conference for a couple of hours to go back to the hotel for a nap.

The fourth day was better, and I managed to attend sessions without risk of falling asleep. It was also the day of our group’s presentation, and then a follow-up dinner with some of the other participants of the special session we were in.

Day 3: Wednesday, August 17

• headed to conference at the HKCEC
• sat in talks, attended poster sessions
• got really tired by afternoon
• went back to hotel for a nap
• returned to conference for reception
• had dinner with a group of linguists in a Vietnamese restaurant near my hotel

Day 4: Thursday, August 18

• more conference
• late for my own group’s talk (but happily wasn’t the one presenting)
• attended organizational meeting for a professional society
• saw that the conference venue had windows!
• had dinner with special session organizers and speakers at a Cantonese restaurant in the HKCEC

There was apparently a visiting VIP at the HKCEC (the convention center) or nearby. There were swarms of police officers.

The cluster of police officers from the previous photo were standing near this set-up. I interpreted the scene as some sort of protest or demonstration, but I am only guessing. Can anyone read the signs?

Since I was pretty tied up with the conference, I didn’t get out and about much these days. But the walk between the hotel and the conference venue was pretty long (~20 minutes), and there were still many interesting sights to be seen. This was when I was returning to the conference after my afternoon nap on Wednesday. I was quite taken by the patterns made by reflected light on the building in the center of the photo.

This fire station was across from the conference venue.

Look! Here I am again. I ended up wearing my hair in a braid most days on my trip, which I don’t do at home. (Usually I wear a ponytail.) I was inspired both by the comfort of keeping my hair of my neck in the heat and humidity, and by the extra time I had to get myself ready in the morning since I had only myself to get ready.

A typical Hong Kong scene: colorful buildings, bamboo scaffolding, and laundry hanging out.

Another view from a pedestrian overpass heading to the conference. It seems like a very large percentage of the vehicles on the road were either cabs (all red in this part of Hong Kong) or buses.

The view of Hong Kong harbour from the conference venue was stunning. (No wonder they kept the drapes closed during the day; people would have just stared out the windows slack-jawed instead of attending to the talks.)

I’ve got a few more photos from these 2 days up on my Flickr site.

Next up: 2 days when I really got out and about.

Hong Kong trip recap: Day 2

For my second day in Hong Kong, my main plans were to meet up with my two local friends.(Among my major motivations to get to Hong Kong for the conference, aside from the conference itself and the reputed amazingness of Hong Kong, was the rare opportunity to get to see these friends, one who I hadn’t seen for 9 years, and the other who I’d never technically seen.) Seeing as my friends don’t know each other, I was meeting up with them separately: lunch with one, and dinner with the other. As such, my day was a bit fragmented, so I couldn’t stray too far. Also, and it may not surprise you to learn this, I was a bit tired after my rather long and busy (read “insane”) first day. Here’s a summary of my major activities:

Day 2: Tuesday, August 16

• woke up early to say goodnight to my kids by 7:30 a.m./p.m. (the 12-hour time difference was remarkably handy for this)
• puttered about hotel room, trying to decide whether I had time to do much before my 12:30 lunch date
• wandered about near hotel a bit
• walked to Admiralty to meet the friend I knew from high school for lunch
• After my friend had to go, took MTR to Central with goal of going up the Mid-Level escalators and checking out Hollywood Road
• went up big escalator as far as Hollywood Road
• wandered down Hollywood Road, browsing among antique shops
• headed back down the stairs along the big escalator and back to MTR
• met my other friend, YTSL, for a delicious dinner at Din Tai Fung, then over to a pub to continue conversation over a pint of ale
• headed back to hotel to attempt a decent night’s sleep before the onset of the conference

(Not included in the list are several walks back to my hotel room to do things like collect forgotten MTR card, and pick up and/or drop off purchases and/or gifts, and also to change clothes and shower. It was hot as hell out and twice as steamy. And also like day 1, I walked so much that I got new blisters on my feet.)

And here are some photos:

This was near my hotel. Many people use umbrellas for shade in Hong Kong. This was about 10:30 in the morning, and already quite hot.

One of many alleys near my hotel. I enjoyed getting fresh juice in the morning from a little hole-in-the-wall place in one of these alleys.

You see a lot more color on Hong Kong buildings than on typical US urban buildings.

This was the dessert from my lunch with my high school friend. I can’t remember what it was called, but it involved apple, caramel, custard and pastry, four food-things of which I am quite fond. It didn’t look nearly as pretty once I started eating it, but I’m happy to say it didn’t suffer long.

A fruit stand, as seen from a raised walkway along the big escalator as I headed up. (The shot’s not totally in focus, but I still like it. We can pretend that the fuzziness was artistic choice.)

Game & Fun!

Another view from above. I like the patchwork pattern of the road surface.

The skyline is definitely dominated by ultra-modern skyscrapers, but more traditional Chinese architecture can be found here and there. Hong Kong is also quite hilly, and alleys that lead to stairways, such as the one in this photo, seem to be pretty common. (This was along Hollywood Road.)

Lions outside, and a goofy looking horse and what looks to be a Great Dane inside, at an antique store along Hollywood Road. Many of the shops had signs in the windows saying “no photos.” This one didn’t.

Going back down the stiars along the Mid-Levels escalator. The escalator part is actually one-way. Apparently it runs down during morning commute hours, and then up the rest of the day. It was afternoon when I was there, so it was going up. This section has more of an upward-angled moving sidewalk. I wish that I’d found time to go up further. (I have a thing for stairs, escalators included.) To see what the whole thing looks like, here’s a youtube video that someone made while ascending.

There are lots of shops around Hong Kong that sell various (and often mysterious-looking) types of dry goods. I don’t know what these things are, but I suspect they are food-related.

Dinner was fantastic, except maybe for the bitter gourd, which is the rectangular thing on my plate. Having never tried it before, I was curious. You may not be surprised to learn that it was bitter. Also shown (going clockwise from the left): a glass of fresh soymilk, some sort of salad with turnip and jellyfish, some sort of salad with strips of bean curd and vegetables (but I can’t remember which), vegetable dumplings, spicy cucumber, more bitter gourd, and sauteed water spinach.

You can find quite a few more photos from my second day up on Flickr, but I haven’t yet added captions.

waiting

It’s been ages since I’ve participated in PhotoHunt, but once again I’m inspired. (I continue to enjoy seeing weekly or near-weekly entries from YTSL and azahar, and every once in a while, the theme sparks something in my brain.¹) This time the theme is “waiting.” Here was a photo I took in Hong Kong on my trip there in August.

Speaking of Hong Kong, photos and waiting, sorry to keep anyone waiting for my next installment of my trip recap. It’s coming soon. I have drafts for days 2 through 8 in various stages of completion. Day 2 should be ready soon. Please stand by.

–

¹ Interesting that last time² inspiration struck was when I posted a photo from azahar‘s city, and this time from YTSL‘s.
² I would also like to point out that the aforementioned photo, which was for the theme “silhouette,” was one of unintentionally funniest photos I’ve ever taken. I aimed for pretty, and what I got made me burst out laughing.

teachable moments

Parenting small children can be tough. But what’s important is work with the challenges, and turn them into teachable moments.

Yesterday morning, Phoebe came to me and said: “Theo just called me ‘stupid bad Phoebe.’”

“Theo!” I scolded. “Is this true?” Theo instantly dropped to the floor and hid his face from me, an apparent admission of guilt.

“Theo, that’s a hurtful thing to say. Those things are just not true.” Theo continued to avoid looking at me.

“What’s more,” I continued, “your choice of words is both unoriginal and uninspired.” I whipped out the thesaurus. “Look here, Theo. Instead of ‘stupid,’ there are plenty of other words you could have chosen: brainless, doltish, simpleminded, half-witted, thick-headed..obtuse! Now there’s a good one.”

“Obsoot?” Theo tried, tentatively, still face down on the floor.

“And instead of ‘bad,’ you could have used…let’s see…beastly, deficient…inferior, atrocious, substandard…Putrid! There’s a nice colorful word. How about putting beastly and doltish together?”

“Beasty goldfish?” Theo turned to look at me.

“Or maybe we can learn from some famous insults…” I quickly googled famous insults. “Ah yes, here we go: “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!” Nice! But, no, no. That won’t do. Let’s not insult me! I’m your mother, too. Ooh, how about this? “You warthog-faced buffoon.” Yes, that’s the way. But better yet would be to make up your own. Think of an animal…or maybe a vegetable. Monkey…turnip…You can combine them with adjectives, like “doltish monkey” or “simpleminded turnip.” Or make compound nouns. How about calling her a substandard, simpleminded turnip-nosed monkey face? Brainless waterbuffalo? Putrid potato head? The combinations are endless! You just need to use your imagination.”

“Now, I want you to give Phoebe a hug and say you’re sorry,” I said sternly. “And next time you insult your sister, I expect to hear something more creative.”

Theo, thoroughly ashamed of his banal insult.

–
I’m going to borrow from Neil, here, and give a truth quotient. Let’s say 50%. I’ll let you guess which parts really happened.

Hong Kong trip recap: Day 1

You may have long given up on me actually posting any more about my Hong Kong trip.¹ But I really do have a lot to share, and what’s more, I want to write down at least some of my thoughts while my memory is still relatively clear.⁵ Over the past few weeks, I have spent bits of time here and there sorting through my photos, and making notes on some of my activities. I can’t tell you how many times I started to write about my trip, only to run out of time.⁶

In the interest of saving time and actually getting this ready to post (along with the many other recap posts I’d like to get to), I won’t go into much detail. But please understand that my first day was in no way moderate. I covered a lot of ground, both in walking and by subway. Along the way, I took a lot of photos, a few of which I am sharing below. I have posted quite a few more from on flickr. Before I get to the photos, here is a list of my major activities and movements that first day:

Day 1: Monday, August 15, 2011

• wondered* around near hotel, in the Wan Chai district, in search of breakfast
• took MTR to Kowloon
• went to Hong Kong Museum of History
• walked to vegetarian restaurant for lunch
• took MTR back to Hong Kong island
• stopped by hotel room to get telephoto lens and waffle over plans for the rest of the day
• walked back to MTR station
• 40-minute MTR ride to Lantau Island
• cable car to see the Big Buddha
• took long bus ride back to bottom of island
• had dinner of pastries from a bakery while sitting out in the square
• watched movie in movie theater
• caught MTR back to Kowloon
• swung by Temple Street night market (but didn’t buy anything)
• took MTR back to Wan Chai
• walked back to hotel

And now some photos:

At the History Museum. These lanterns were lowered over the audience at the end of a film about Hong Kong peoples and cultural events. (The museum had many small theaters showing short films that focussed on specific time periods or specific aspects of Hong Kong history. In addition to this one, I saw films on local geology, the Opium War, the Japanese occupation in WWII.)


Walking around after the museum, trying to find a specific restaurant. (I had my camera strap around my head, with my camera hanging near my waist, and was taking photos without looking at the viewer.)

One of the few photos I have of myself in Hong Kong.


A fountain at the square outside the Tung Chung MTR stop on Lantau island.

The cable car ride was really quite dramatic and impressive. The building that the cables are leading to (and from) is not the start of the ride, but a point part way through at which the ride makes a more-or-less 90 degree turn. It’s hard to see in the photo at this resolution, but you can see a couple of cars dangling over the water in the upper right corner of the photo, between the two bridges. You can click here to see a crop of that region.)

At one point, I passed over a beach that was spotted with people. Most of them were digging clams.

I’m not sure whether this pair was involved in the clam-digging, but I did appreciate their shadows. (The glass-bottomed cable car let me take a lot of shots straight down.)

The views of cityscapes (and cloudscapes) were quite impressive.

The cable cars went up into forested mountainous areas. Again, my glass-bottomed car led to some dramatic views. I felt like I was floating above the treetops.

It was very impressive when the Big Buddha came into view. As you can see from the way he towers above the tree tops, he is indeed Quite Big.

I arrived just too late go up the stairs to get a closer view of the Buddha (and to see the building he’s sitting on). The views from below were still beautiful. (I was going to say “impressive” again, but I don’t want to overuse it. But it was impressive.)

When I finally returned to the square outside the MTR station, I saw that there was a movie theater there. I checked the listings, and was happy to see that Wu Xia was playing, a Hong Kong action movie (and one suggested to me by YTSL, Hong Kong film buff extraordinaire, as an option to fulfill the trip goal of seeing a Hong Kong action movie while in Hong Kong.) The movie theater was large and modern, and I was surprised by two things: 1) I had to select my seat when buying my ticket, much like for an airplane and 2) the popcorn choices were buttered or chocolate. (As I am one who is drawn to novel things, I opted for the chocolate.)

So there, in a rather large nutshell, was Day 1. Here are a few things I left out of the nutshell:

• It was super hot and steamy (probably low 90s and 90%+ humidity), even after dark.
• In spite of the ginormous time difference (12-hours!) and the very long travel day of the day(s) before (~28 hours door-to-door), I only felt tired when I was in my hotel room. When I was out and about, I was so excited to be in Hong Kong that I only felt excited to be in Hong Kong
• I did get some blisters on my feet, which I also felt (in additioning to feeling excited to be in Hong Kong).

I really hope I’ll get to post more about my trip soon. (I still really, truly, absolutely owe YTSL at least one post on our excursion and hike together.) Please nag me if I go too long before posting on this again.

–

¹ You may have long given up on me actually posting.²
² You may have long given up on me.³
³ You may have long given up.⁴
⁴ You may have long ___. [I'll let you fill in the blank]
⁵ Um…too late, alejna.
⁶ Well, I can tell you the number of times. It was 5.
* And by “wondered,” I meant “wandered.” But apparently both words fit, so I left my typo. (See comments, below.)